Many electromechanical systems must periodically undergo maintenance. For example, an electromechanical system may fail during operation so that maintenance is required in order to repair the electromechanical system and to return the electromechanical system to operation. Alternatively, an electromechanical system may periodically undergo scheduled maintenance in order to reduce the likelihood that the electromechanical system will fail unexpectedly during operation. For example, aircraft generally include a large number of subsystems that must be maintained, preferably in accordance with a predefined maintenance schedule.
In some situations, a plurality of electromechanical systems of the same type are available for performing a particular function. For example, a mission may require that a plurality of aircraft be deployed on a particular day. In order to provide proper resource allocation, such as proper allocation of the aircraft, the availability of the electromechanical systems must be determined. For example, the availability of the aircraft on the date of the mission must be determined in order to properly identify the aircraft to fly the mission. For those electromechanical systems currently undergoing maintenance or scheduled to undergo maintenance prior to the date of deployment, it must therefore be determined if sufficient maintenance operations will have been performed such that the electromechanical system will be available.
In evaluating the status of electromechanical systems following completion of the maintenance operations, the electromechanical systems are generally considered to be either in the same state as immediately prior to the commencement of the maintenance operations, i.e., as bad-as-old, or in a like-new condition, i.e., as good-as-new. These assumptions are generally somewhat incorrect, however, since the status of an electromechanical system following completion of the maintenance operations is generally somewhere between as bad-as-old and as good-as-new. For example, in instances in which the maintenance operations repair an electromechanical system that failed during operation, the electromechanical system is generally in better shape than immediately prior to the failure and, as such, will likely operate without failure for a longer period of time. However, even after the completion of the maintenance operations, the electromechanical system will likely not be in like-new condition and will generally be expected to fail in a somewhat shorter period of time than a new electromechanical system.
In order to more accurately determine the status of an electromechanical system following the completion of maintenance operations, a technique that applies a modulated power law process was described by Scott E. Black, et al., “Statistical Inference for a Modulated Power Law Process,” Journal of Quality Technology, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 81-90 (January 1996). In this regard, the Black article describes a technique in which the relative status of an electromechanical system following the completion of maintenance operations could be determined across a continuum extending from as good-as-new to as bad-as-old. The contents of the Black article are incorporated by reference herein.
Unfortunately, conventional resource allocation techniques have not taken into account the relative status or operability of an electromechanical system, but have instead, merely focused upon the identification of those electromechanical systems that will be operable on the date of deployment. With respect to mission requests that identify a number of aircraft required to fly a particular mission on a predetermined date, aircraft are selected for the mission from among those that will be operational on the predetermined date of the mission without any consideration as to the relative status or degree of readiness of the aircraft. In determining the availability of the aircraft, a minimum equipment list is typically utilized to identify a number of subsystems that must be functioning in order for the aircraft to be cleared to fly. As such, aircraft that have the minimum equipment identified by the minimum equipment list would be identified as a candidate for the mission without any indication as to the relative degree of readiness of the aircraft and its respective subsystems.
Since mission commanders not only wish to begin a mission, but to complete the mission as successfully as possible, it would be useful to not only identify the aircraft that are operational and available on the predetermined date of the mission, but also to provide some indication as to the relative degrees of readiness of the aircraft. As such, the mission commander could select those aircraft that have the greatest likelihood of successfully completing the mission without failure of one or more aircraft subsystems. To date, however, mission commanders are not provided with information relating to the relative degrees of readiness of the aircraft.